It is known in the weaving art to employ looms which utilize a freely traveling shuttle to carry a weft thread transversely of warp threads of woven material, and ordinarily motion is imparted to such a shuttle as a result of impact of such shuttle against a so-called loop picker. Each of these loop pickers is usually attached at the end of a picker stick and each stick is activated by the loom so as to allow the loop picker to absorb the impact of the oncoming shuttle and immediately thereafter to strike the shuttle so as to impart sufficient force thereto to send it in an opposite direction.
Accordingly, it will be appreciated that there is repeated impact of the shuttle striking the loop picker causing vibration of the picker, the picker stick, and causing considerable wear of such picker.
It has been proposed heretofore in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,786,492 and 3,332,450, for example, to construct a picker of various combinations of fabric and cushioning layers in an effort to cushion the impact between the shuttle and the picker. However, there has been no effort heretofore to provide a picker made of fabric material which is substantially impenetrable by a shuttle in an effort to improve the wear and impact-absorbing properties of such picker.